The average American spends 8.5 hours a day working. That’s 42.5 hours a week, and a whopping 2,210 hours every year! If, like me your job ties you to a desk, that space is probably the only place other than your bed in which you’ll spend nearly that much time. But how many of us give any consideration to how the space is set up? Or how we position ourselves at that desk? Here’s a basic checklist for you to run down in order to optimize your workspace, and in turn, your overall wellbeing and health.
As sound editors, it's crucial that we approach our edits with the mixer's needs in mind. In previous posts we’ve covered how to deliver clean, organized edits to help streamline the mixing stage. But what about processing to remove additional steps for our mixer? In this post, I’ll share simple but effective techniques to tidy up your sound editorial without causing a headache for the mixer down the line.
With a seemingly limitless number of plugins at our fingertips today, it's easy for the most rudimentary tools to go under appreciated. Among the Avid stock plugins, one of THE most frequently used, yet lesser discussed is the 'Reverse' AudioSuite. This tool is as simple as they come, but what it lacks in bells and whistles it makes up for in creative potential. Today I thought I'd discuss a few ways I like to use it and demonstrate with examples.
As a team of audio professionals obsessed with sound, we love praising the audio tools that inspire us in our everyday work. Whether it’s a sound mangling vocal processor or the latest and greatest reverb plugin…but what about the unsung heroes of the tools we use daily: those that actually facilitate our audio post operations? Here are a handful of tools and solutions we use to successfully run our operations here at Boom Box Post!
Did you enjoy our past editions of ‘What’s That Sound?’ quizzes? Let’s see if you can guess what sounds we have come up with this time! Listen closely, good luck and have fun!
As a sound effects editor, you are likely part of a team of editors who eventually hand their work off to a re-recording mixer. It’s important to understand that the way that you organize your work is often just as important to your mixer and the final end product as is your creative quality.
With Spring in full effect and Summer right around the corner, the world is becoming more and more inviting to explore and record! We felt it was the perfect time to revisit some of the field recording blog posts we’ve written over the years that may have been forgotten deep in the blog archives. So here are the top 5 we’ve let resurface for your reading pleasure, to serve as inspiration and a guide for returning to the field!
I’m addicted to markers. They help me organize, plan, and stay on schedule every episode I work on. They also serve as a visual reward where you can see the progress you’re making as you delete markers as you go. In this blog post I’ll give you some tips and tricks on how to use markers to your advantage, and give you some ideas on how it may fit into your workflow.
This past week we chatted with one of our supervising sound editors, Tess Fournier! Tess has shared so much insider knowledge here over the years but we felt it was time to get an update on both a professional and personal level!
A re-recording mixer possesses many technical skills. Here at Boom Box Post, we’ve covered the subject in countless posts. But outside of the technical realm, what other skills are useful on the job? Here are my top 10.
As sound editors, we’re always looking for opportunities to fortify our sound effects library. A great sound editor can deliver excellent editorial with even the most limited toolbox. However, for a team that works on demanding series of varying styles with quick turnarounds—getting bogged down by a weak library isn’t an option.
For aspiring editors and audio students, I always come across one tip in—to start building up a personal SFX library. So I complied a list of 10 spring inspired sounds, that if you have access to, you should go out and record this refreshing time of year!
How often do you look up at the clock in disbelief that day is already halfway gone? Time is easy to lose track of and there’s nothing worse than feeling behind on your projects. We interviewed our expert mixers and sound editors for their input on how to consistently deliver work in a professional manner: on time!
Whether you’re a seasoned field recordist or just getting your feet wet, you probably know by now it’s not the cheapest hobby. It’s a niche market that requires very specialized equipment and accessories, so it’s no surprise these companies charge an arm and a leg for their products. In my experience, when it comes to the most important pieces in your kit, IE recorder/mixers, microphones, etc, investing in the best gear your budget allows usually pays dividends in the long run. But with accessories like a synthetic fur windcover, I’m curious to see if we really need to spend $100+ to achieve satisfactory recordings. To me, it’s more important to get out in the field and start recording rather than waiting to afford the perfect setup. So with that being said, let’s try making a DIY windcover!
Awards season is here and we are SO honored to have been nominated for three Children’s and Family Emmy Awards for our sound work. We spoke with our talented team to get an inside look at the sound work for our nominees.
Growing up in the Midwest, it seemed like everyone had a basement (not a thing here in LA). A basement is a bonus space the size of your entire floor plan. For adults, this means lots of storage (functional but boring); for kids, a giant playroom! When I was young, my dad bought two used pinball machines from a friend and plunked them down in our basement. These were mid-70’s era classics with all the (literal) bells and whistles. At any time of day you could hear these very specific sounds emanating from our basement, working their way into the consciousness of one young sound designer in the making (me).
Needless to say, these two pinball machines became family treasures. So when it came time for my parents to downsize their house (no room for pinball), I just couldn’t resist keeping one for myself and my family.
We are extremely proud to announce the release of our latest Boom Box Library: The Pinball SFX Library!
The Pinball SFX Library features 830+ custom-recorded sound effects from a vintage pinball machine such as bumpers, pistons, coin return, bonus balls, game play, flippers, metal doors, jackpot, plungers, scoreboard ticker, power on, power off, startup sequence and more.
It’s been some time since we’ve discussed the art of designing backgrounds here on the blog. Although backgrounds aren’t the sexiest food group in the sound editorial process, they’re absolutely crucial for providing the foundation of storytelling for every scene.
In the past, we have published multiple blogs that list classic cartoon sound effects and the emotion they convey to the audience. Our hope is that these lists will help those stuck in their sound editorial from having to sift through their entire sound library looking for the perfect sound.
We recently found ourselves working on a Roller Derby themed episode for one of our shows. As you can imagine, this episode called for an abundance of roller skating sounds to cover a wide variety of performances. With the guidance of Re-recording mixer Jacob Cook, Tess and Tim took it upon themselves to plan and execute a recording session to help build up our library and turnover some much needed roller skating sounds for the episode.
